274 
BIRDS OF NEW MEXICO 
back, shoulders, and wing coverts with white tips (worn in winter) giving scaled 
effect; head and chest indistinctly streaked with dusky, breast band pinkish buff. 
Comparisons. —Though similar to the Whitc-rumped, the Baird Sandpiper may 
be recognized in flight in any plumage by its brown instead of white upper tail coverts. 
In summer it differs by lacking the rufous above and having white instead of spotted 
sides. In winter plumage its buffy breast and paler upperparts are characteristic. 
From the Pectoral Sandpiper it differs in smaller size, blackish feet, and less sharply 
and extensively streaked breast band; from the Least and Western Sandpipers by its 
slightly larger size, buffy tone, and less distinct streaking on breast. 
Range. —Northeastern Asia and North and South America. Breeds on or near 
the Arctic coast from northeastern Siberia and Point Barrow, Alaska to Yukon, 
Mackenzie, Baffin Island, and probably Greenland; winters in Chile and western 
Argentina; casually, at least, to Falkland Islands. 
State Records. —From its far northern breeding grounds along the Arctic coast, 
the Baird Sandpiper comes south in the fall and crosses New Mexico on its way to its 
winter home in southern South America. All of the records refer to its occurrence 
in the fall, when it was noted as early as July 30—also August 25 and 27, 1913, near 
Koehler Junction (Kalmbach); August 15, 1903, near Sierra Grande (Howell); 
August 26-27, 1908, at Beaver Lake (Birdseye); on the salt flats west of the Guada¬ 
lupe Mountains, September 2, 1902 (Hollister); on the plains 12 miles north of Las 
Vegas, September 2, 1903 (Bailey); Apache, September 7, 1S86 (Anthony); Albu¬ 
querque, September 7-10, 1900 (Birtwell); found common in irrigated alfalfa fields 
near Carlsbad September 3-14, 1901 (Bailey); noted at Zuni, September 16, 1851 
(Woodhouse); and Horse Lake and Lake Burford, September 22 to October 1, 1904 
(Bailey). 
The species occurs of course in New Mexico during the spring migration, but 
is as yet unrecorded there at that season.—W. W. Cooke. 
Food. —Grasshoppers, locusts, cutworms, ants, clover-root curculios, weevils, 
flies, crane fly larvae, mosquitoes, earthworms, water beetles, dragon fly nymphs, 
snails, and sedge seeds, plants, and rootlets. 
General Habits. —Small flocks of the little Baird Sandpipers are 
seen in migration along the sandy margins of streams and lakes, around 
muddy sloughs, and on irrigated fields associated sometimes with the 
Least Sandpiper or the Killdeer. They appear in different plumages — 
one taken September 22 at Horse Lake had apparently completed its 
fall molt, while one taken October 1, at Lake Burford, was still in imma¬ 
ture fall plumage. At Carlsbad we were fortunate enough to see a 
close flock of about fifty, flying with a low twittering trip trip. Quiet, 
modest little sandpipers they are, very different from the big, noisy, 
dashing Yellow-legs. It i£ hard to think of them as "globe spanners/ 7 
as they have been called, but small as they are, they "traverse the 
whole length of both continents twice a year 77 (Bent, 1927, p. 193). 
After reaching Alaska, their spring chorus, heard by Mr. Alfred M. 
Bailey, seemed quite in character, suggesting the "singing of many 
little grass frogs in a meadow pond. 77 At times a male would rise 
high in the air, in the way so characteristic of male sandpipers, give 
forth his song and sail down 77 (1926, pp. 31-32). 
